Android Ice Cream Sandwich, this is not the treat you are looking for

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This has been a busy two weeks for big name drops in the mobile world. We had the release of the iPhone 4S to record numbers once again, and tomorrow we are looking at the drop of the newest iteration of Android, “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS). The Android community has been anxiously awaiting ICS as it is believed it will unify the user experience between phones and tablets that are powered by Google’s mobile OS. Which, eventually, it will.

The issue facing Google, and the community that surrounds Android, is the fact that the unification process they so desperately need and want will not happen with ICS, but down the road as the market purges older devices.

Let’s start with what we know about ICS, which is mostly gleaned from a leaked video (embedded below):

A new lock screen is going to be implemented, using bubbles to activate specific actions by dragging.

Honeycomb tablet users will not notice much difference, mainly in aesthetics and coloring.

Phone users will notice a drastic difference, as ICS brings honeycomb features to handsets.

The experience will be generally the same whether you are holding a tablet or a phone powered by ICS.

At least on the Tuna (internal code name for the ICS phone being announced tomorrow), there will be no hard buttons on the face of the device; it will have soft buttons like current Honeycomb tablets.

There will likely be some additional changes and possibly a Big Reveal at tomorrow night’s announcement of ICS and the Nexus Prime — and our sister site Geek.com has more analysis if you’re interested — but really, there is a more pressing matter at hand.

The simple fact of the matter is: Android has some serious hurdles to overcome to generate enough excitement and hype that the iPhone garners upon its release. If you are familiar with Android, the issues are not new to you, the biggest of course being fragmentation.

With the release of Honeycomb, Google changed its policy of opening the source code for the build to the general public. This was done to begin the process of addressing fragmentation on the platform. Google did not want Honeycomb appearing on handsets, because it was not built for that. Big G knew that as soon as the source dropped, the developer community would be working on a ROM, thus creating more issues instead of solving them. This is where ICS comes in.

For sure, Google is trying to unify its platform. This makes sense in many ways, mainly for third-party monetization. Right now, an Android developer has to take a ton of different devices into account, as well as the versions of Android that they run. For small developers, this can be too resource consuming; for larger companies like Disney, it presents a hurdle. Why spend the money on developing and maintaining different versions of their Android apps when they can make one version on iOS that will work across all the supported devices? Mountain View wants to answer that question by saying their handset diversity will be a strength with ICS now, instead of a hindrance.

The issue is, this will not happen overnight. When ICS is officially announced tomorrow we are probably a month away from the source being released via the Android Open Source Project. Even then, the device that is going to be announced probably won’t be on sale until November or December. On top of that, it will take upwards of two years for people to roll out of their contracts and upgrade their devices, retiring older versions of Android.

Unification is coming, and it is a welcome thing, but ICS is not the ultimate solution for Android. It is a step in the process to taming this platform which has exploded onto the mobile scene. With groups like the CyanogenMod team developing ICS custom ROMs, it will help bring older devices into ICS, but really we won’t see major traction for a year or more. Never mind all the tablets that have been released with Honeycomb or below, there is a short list for scheduled updates to ICS. There are just too many devices for everything to come into line in a rapid way.

It will be interesting to see the announcement tomorrow night, it will be analyzed and spun every which direction. If you are patient with Android and know that it is going to take time, you will be delighted with ICS. If you think this will solve all the issues out there with Android, sorry: ICS is not the treat you are looking for.

Tagged In

it won’t take two years to get most devices to ICS. Most Devices that have come out in the last year will be able to run ICS. Whether they will all get updated remains to be seen but if Google is able to get their Carrier and Manufacturing updates to happen like they said they would at Google IO then they could have most people to ICS within a year

I don’t believe “fragmentation” is an issue when two versions make up 85% of the users. To reiterate what Jay, King of Gay said, if the apps are properly written, there won’t be a problem.

Anonymous

it won’t take two years to get most devices to ICS. Most Devices that have come out in the last year will be able to run ICS. Whether they will all get updated remains to be seen but if Google is able to get their Carrier and Manufacturing updates to happen like they said they would at Google IO then they could have most people to ICS within a year

fragmentation is a nice buzzword, but what we’re talking about is legacy. You’ve got older devices running older versions of Android.
Also, get your facts straight, developers do NOT have to create multiple versions of their apps. They need only create ONE that works on all versions. When coded correctly, something like “Plume” ( a twitter client) works on both honeycomb and gingerbread, though the experience may look slightly different due to form factor. There’s only one plume app.

Anonymous

Exactly right!

Also, I discredit anyone who says, “With groups like the CyanogenMod team developing ICS custom ROMs, it will help bring older devices into ICS, but really we won’t see major traction for a year or more.” For the record, it took the CM team two months to get CM7 (Gingerbread) released after the source was released. 2 < 12 months. Have a nice day.

CyanogenMod is not ‘major traction.’ I don’t have any statistics, but I can’t imagine that more than 1% of Android users have CM installed.

Here major traction refers to a sizable minority, or even a majority share of the market. You can see the current version share here: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

Anonymous

In the small (compared to total users) community of users that install custom ROMs, ~700k installs is significant; and that’s only counting those who opt in usage statistics.

Also, the current Android stats show that two versions of Android (2.3 and 2.2) make up 85% of the users. Adding 2.1 makes up 96% of the market. This is hardly fragmentation but people LOVE to use that buzzword, as Jay mentioned.

Lon Grove

I was running a CM7 ROM variant on my Optimus V but I switched to the Harmonia ROM. It’s the best Optimus V ROM I’ve used. My Nook Color is running CM7. I have two friends who bought $149 refurbed NC’s after using mine and had me put CM7 on them. I wouldn’t discount the custom ROM crowd contributing towards ICS “major traction” as soon as it’s released.

The Kindle Fire (Ti 4430 soc) is going to be seeing a whole new level of rooting/ROM interest as soon as it’s released. Getting ICS on the Fire will be the most fiercely worked toward hack in Android history.

Yar, ICS on the Fire will be a fantastic win — and here’s hoping that CM and the custom ROM crowd in general really get behind ICS.

Zak Venturo

I have to disagree beyond the numbers. Considering the influence CyanogenMod has had on Samsung, supplying them with devices and even hiring out their lead developer. It was just a few months before these events where Android phones were making headlines for locking the bootloader, which created an outcry in the rooted community. Cyanogen team and its fans being a big part of this.

The rooted community is a big voice in Android’s direction. Also consider, Cyanogen is also the starting point for many other ROMs, and that the Cyanogen team has helped with other major rooted projects like MIUI.

The size and influence of Android’s rooted community is very unique in its power to help shape Android’s future. Its because of the naked visibility of an open source project that makes it possible. Custom ROMs directly challenge the manufacturers who say something can’t be done by proving that, in fact, it can be done.

I dunno if Android is a special case, though, compared to other open source projects (Apache, Firefox, Linux…)

I didn’t mean to diminish the importance of CM in keeping Android usable, tho’ — if anything, it provides an alternative to the commercial Android distros, and that’s ALWAYS a good thing.

Zak Venturo

My statements about being unique isn’t in regards to the open source community, but in regards to manufacturers like Samsung, or even with carriers like Verizon, and the experience of open source as a product. It is not that other open source projects are not high profile in their own right, but Android is promoted through these manufacturers and carriers and their participation with open source makes it unique.

The rooted community might be the vocal minority, but the power of that minority is visible when it does something the manufacturers and carriers say isn’t possible, like timely updates or supporting old hardware with newer versions of the Android operating system.

There’s a biiiig difference between a CM-released ROM and a firmware update released by a carrier. Localization and QA are horrible things that big corporations simply MUST do. Then there’s training the support staff to deal with the new version of the OS… and lots of other factors, I’m sure.

I dunno if the fact that Android is open source really factors into whether Samsung produces Android phones. If it was closed source — if the source was only available to Google’s partners, like Samsung — then… I suspect Samsung would still be on board.

An interesting thought, though.

Zak Venturo

But you are not looking at the long term, how this vocal minority is really the hot bed which can be recruited from as it deals with Android specific problems as each carrier and manufacturer individually wants to brand themselves different while taking advantage of Android’s popularity. For instance, Samsung hiring Steve Kondik.

These companies started out thinking like Apple without realizing that fundamentally open source is a different animal than a closed system. Jail breaking an iPhone will never have the kind of impact on Apple as rooting does with Android. The business models are different, and ultimately it creates a different developmental pool to draw from, and with Android the rooted community is a big resource.

Maybe in a direct linear way custom ROMs will not make an impact on dealing with legacy devices. The problems over fragmentation and legacy devices, however, have been given real solutions through this community. And the fact that the talent in this community is beginning to be tapped means the overall impact is going to be very big indeed.

who is this author????
I recommend the education and the indulgence of all mobile hardware devices and or platforms before you create such a piss poorly informed and easily discredited page.

Anonymous

yup! Now that the source code has dropped, we should be seeing Cyanogenmod 9 around January!

Anonymous

This article is unreasonable as ICS has not been fully revealed. Leave your fragmentation articles for later when you actually have some solid evidence.

Anonymous

This guy makes it sound like everyone else releases major updates to their phones instantly while google doesn’t… Hasn’t Microsoft and Apple lagged from announcement of new OS to updating devices too?

Anonymous

This guy sounds like a total doofus. Your article sir, is as clueless as an idiots ranting.

Carina Mattis

“It will be interesting to see the announcement tomorrow night, it will be analyzed and spun every which direction.” Looks like it is already having spin put on it thanks to you.

Rodd Clarkson

I’m fascinated by the timing of this article. The writer has only vague rumours to go on and has posted this article 2 days before ICS is announced. This strikes me as very strange.

It would have made much more sense to hold off two days and actually know what you’re talking about than to made claims based on popular rumours.

I can only wonder if the author forgets to hype about iPhone 5 before it was eventually ‘not’ released.

Clarence Smith

Sell enough android devices and the developers will come. Android remains on track to remain the biggest phone developer on the market and as tablets continue to take off, and their price must drop to accomplish that, then Android will likely be top banana on bigger screens too. Its very hard to compete with free in OS pricing. What’s a developer to do – sell only to a smaller market?

As challenging as different versions of Google are I suspect that even if some developer were writing for iOS first it will remain cost effective for developers to port to newer flavors of Android. There is little problem to solve for Andrioid. What can you do with an Iphone you can’t do with a Google phone? Not much. Mostly because of more diverse hardware you may instead find more Android innovation – Flash, for instance or copy,cut and paste or multi-tasking – developers built these for the high end android phones before any other of the front running competitors to Android. Developers have enough time to develop for the higher priced iOS platform and still build more for the the better hardware on high end Android devices. There may be some grumbling among developers about the fragmentation – but the hardware innovations of the Android make many developers prefer the cutting edge app development on Google. With Ice Cream the grumblers should be appeased as they work on the next generation of software for innovative new hardware to which they will adopt the next generation of cutting edge apps. .

Anonymous

It is a shame this article is so misinformed.

First the way apple releases there single phone is designed to bring a momentary uproar. Android releases are throughout the year, so it isn’t even comparable.

Second, fragmentation had been dead over a year when 2.1 became the majority version. Since then fragmentation is a errors for the history books. Android 2.1 to 2.4 us no diff than ios 4.3 to ios 5.0

You confuse fragmentation with carrier delay in version upgrades. But there is no limitation of softwste or apps with any version 2.1 or later.

This editorial is obviously written by an Apple fanboy. The fragmentation issue is much talked about by the (Apple loving) press but in practice it is almost a non-issue now.

Robiara Ubiratan Becker

I think that what the author means by fragmentation issues is having to be compatible with cheap exoteric asian crapdroids. I think the goal is to limit the hardware specs and have a more uniform and reliable base.

Gunnar S

It is tomorrow and yet no ICS!

Charles Barouch

Fragmentation? Seriously? Windows works on a huge range of screen sizes with a variety of CPUs, GPUs, amounts of memory, etc. People running on XP, Vista, Windows 7, and beta Windows 8 do not make us play the fragmentation card. Then look at the Mac: iMac, Macbook Air, et al. I sthat fragmentation?

So, if we aren’t talking screen size, speed, or hardware, we could only be talking about UI overlays. So what? I’ve yet to see a UI stop one of my apps from working on my MyTouch, my Xoom, my daughter’s sidekick, or my wife’s G1 and Samsung.

I only see one reason to discuss fragmentation: the writer needs to justify their negative slant. My iPhone 4 (yes, I walk on both sides of this street) lives along with my other daughter’s iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3, iPhone 4S, et al. They exist with fragmented hardware and software. No one hates them for it. Can we stop trotting out the stupid, misleading, pointless, fragmentation issue?

Fragmentation is a negative word for diversity. Everyone I know who has an HTC phone bought it because they liked the interface better than the iPhone or other Android phones. This is smart marketing for Google, to allow the phone makers to make it their own, and smart marketing for HTC to make their phones more desirable than the others. If out selling the iPhone 2 to 1 is somehow a negative thing because it doesn’t generate “hype” I’m guessing that Google really doesn’t care. I’m going to stick with Android, and I don’t care if the guy next door has an a Android phone that looks different from mine. Diversity is good.

Anonymous

Do You Work for Microsoft or Apple? Maybe you’re getting some Payola on the side or anticipating either or both Apple and Microsoft stuffing a nice fat Christmas Stocking up for you? Anyway there is so much wrong here, I don’t even want to get into it. But if I was you, I’d knock off the 180Proof RDF CrApple Juice and FUD Soaked Microcrap sandwiches! ;-P …..besides they won’t do your figure any good and like Beer Goggles you’ll have the morning after hangover. Along with the roll over back to REALITY! O.O ughhh….

Gentlemen, please note that only the webs owned by Softbank, ExtremeTech and PCMag published the negative comments on Androd ICS, while the other webs posted the favourable reviews on ICS. It may be all the writers employed by Softbank are either apple fanboys or on apple payroll

Anonymous

Can we get an update on this article? Now that you actually know what ICS looks like…

Anonymous

The article reads like something from Gizmodo! (and thats NOT a good thing!) Fragmentation hasnt been a big deal for quite a while…if you look at the stats, the VAST MAJORITY of devices out there are running Android 2.2, “Froyo”, or higher. Developers have no issue writing code to support the majority of devices out there. By the way, take a look at the “fragmentation” of Apple’s iOS platform while you are at it! You have many apps that wont run on the iPhone 3, iOS 5 wont run well on a 3gs, and Siri wont run on anything but a 4s! The fact is, “fragmentation” is an issue for blog journalists ONLY…everyone else seems to get along just fine.

Doug Young

Anyone considering ICS & who wants to do more than play inane games like Angry Birds should give it a wide berth. It doesn’t recognize the normal Android Market, GoogleMaps is badly broken with no voice guidance and location off by at least a hundred kilometers. WiFi is exremely poor to non-existent, ethernet not much better, browser is hopelessly slow and unstable, battery life is much poorer than claimed … in short there is ***NOTHING*** complimentary that can be said.

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